What we do

We organise: research consortia, symposia, the means to answer key problems

We instil: hope and pragmatic solutions

We chair: committees in complex fields: kept to time, business, and the key outputs

We do: research !

Our Philosophy

" It is our duty to remain optimists. The future is open. It is not predetermined and thus cannot be predicted except by accident. The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite. The future depends upon ourselves. It is we who bear all the responsibility "

From Karl Popper

"The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation".

From Bertrand Russell

Cooperation
Example 1:Chair NC-IUPHAR, 90 subcommittees (800 scientists) working freely and openly on a major problem: defining all the drug sites in the human genome. Seewww:guidetopharmacology.org

Example 2:IMI Newmeds, Many pharmaceutical companies and academic groups working together in the biggest precompetitive consortium in psychiatric disease.

Example 3: Clay Shirky : Wikipedia represents 100 milllion hours of freely given human effort. Yet US television alone represents 200 billion hours/year. Imagine if we could harness just 1% of that for visionary projects. Major problems can be solved by using the right levers to engage people.

But successful cooperation needs goals, organisation, follow-up and to be win-win.Validation of concepts is via experimentation, and experimental design is critical. That is one of our strengths.